


Enough

by hereforthehurts (orphan_account)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ableism, Disability, Febuwhump, Gen, Mom Friend Katara (Avatar), Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Toph Beifong-centric, Toph has internalized ableism, WHERE R ALL THE FICS THAT TALKS ABOUT TOPH'S DISABILITY??, Whump, internalized ableism, well this is the one folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29321919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/hereforthehurts
Summary: Toph doesn’t let herself cry, she never does. And it made Katara’s heart ache to realize that the world has taught her how to be tough and powerful, but never soft.Toph never knew how to let herself be loved.
Relationships: Toph Beifong & Katara
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> For febuwhump day 9; buried alive! I read a headcannon somewhere about benders having nightmares about being killed by their own bending (ex. water = drowning) and it's been stuck on me ever since .. . . also Toph ranting abt internalized ableism down there because i like projecting myself into my favorite characters whjdfjkjh. Enjoy the fic :-)

“Hey.”  
  


  
Toph knows she was coming. She had sensed her footsteps before she could even hear them—but still, she has winced when Katara called for her, even more when she settled herself beside her on the dock, feet dipping into the water while Toph kept them crossed.

They sat there for a while, not talking, not doing anything except stare at everything _but_ each other.

  
_Are you okay?_ Katara wanted to ask, but it was a stupid question. Of course she’s not, even when the war had ended. Even when she knows that everything is going to be okay, at least for the foreseeable future.  
  
Because the war leaves scars.  
  
  
And there are some scars that won’t go away, even when you’ve healed them.  
  
  
  


“I think maybe we should talk. About what happened,” Katara finally speaks up, “…your nightmares.”  
  
“What is there to talk about?” Toph mutters. “They’re nightmares. Everyone gets them. _You_ get them.”  
  
“I do,” Katara sighs.  
  
She stares at the full moon glowing in their presence for a moment.  
  
“Wanna know something?”  
  
“Can I stop you?”  
  
Katara laughs a bit. “No, you’re right. You can’t.”  
  
Silence.  
  
  
  
“Well, are you going to tell me?” Toph asks.  
  
“Do you want me to?”  
  
“I’m listening here, aren’t I?”  
  
“Okay,” Katara smiles in amuse, “that’s a pretty weird way to get someone to talk, but okay.”  
  
“I mean, talking helps you, doesn’t it?” Toph shrugs.  
  
“Does it… help _you_?”  
  
“No.” The other girl says almost immediately, as if it was obvious. “I mean, I never even learned how to.”  
  
Katara blinks.  
  
“Just tell me the story, sugar queen.”  
  
“I… Okay.” She sighs, splashing the water below her with her feet for a while. “I’ve… you know that I get them, those dreams. And most of them are just nonsense, like pieces of scenes that doesn’t make senses, but—somehow, for some reason, the worst of them always ended up with me…” she paused for a while, “drowning.”  
  
  
  
  
“Drowning,” Toph repeats.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Does it bother you?”  
  
“It does,” Katara shrugs. “It’s kind of—it feels like my brain is teasing me, you know. The thing I’m most powerful at is what kills me in my nightmares.”  
  
“Do you think it’s normal?”  
  
“Maybe.” She sighs. “I’ve heard Zuko screaming in his sleep about getting burned, about his scar. Aang’s was about getting suffocated. He’s told me about the feelings he’d get, the feeling of the air leaving his lungs forcefully.”  
  
“And Sokka?” Toph asks.  
  
“A lot of things, but mostly? Getting stabbed.”  
  
“And Suki?”  
  
“She wouldn’t tell.”  
  
“Oh.”   
  
Katara watches Toph’s expression for a moment, but she could never read them, not the way she does with everyone else. It’s the little things like the way Toph smiles without her eyes, or the way she would just stare at the distance whenever she’s thinking—Katara could never know.  
  
And it’s hard, because Katara wanted to _so badly.  
  
_  
  
“Why… why are you telling me all this?” Toph asks suddenly, her pale white eyes staring right at her. “Is it another tactic you’re using so that I’d talk?”  
  
“Toph,” she started slowly, like she was expecting this, “ _no_.”  
  
“Then why are you even here?”  
  
“Because I care about you.”  
  
“Why do you care?”  
  
“You’re my friend.”  
  
“No, you’re not. Just say it. It’s because I’m blind.” Toph gets up from her seat abruptly. “I’m small and blind and helpless, that’s why you care so much about me, is it not?”  
  
Katara sighs. “Yeah, it is.”  
  
  
Toph stood there, startled. Then she spoke up again, her words full of venom, “I hate you.”  
  
“No, you don’t.”  
  
“Yes, the fuck I do. I _hate_ you.”  
  
“That’s okay,” Katara tells her patiently. “But you know you don’t mean that, Toph. You’re just scared.”  
  
“Why would you fucking _say_ that?” Toph yells. “No shit, Katara _, of course I’m scared!_ ”  
  
“And that’s _okay,”_ Katara raises her voice a little, standing up before reaching for Toph’s hands, which the girl slapped away, “it’s okay. To be scared. I’m right here, Toph. You don’t have to—” her voice breaks when she says it, “to be so strong all the time, you know.”  
  
“No, you’re wrong. I have to.” Toph lowers her voice, her arms moving to hug herself, “I _have_ to. It’s the only thing I’ve ever learned how to be.”  
  
Katara stares at her in silence for a moment.  
  
  
  
  
“Then maybe it’s time to unlearn that, don’t you think?”  
  
Toph swallows thickly. “I can’t.”  
  
“Yes, you can. You said it yourself, you can do anything.”  
  
“And that’s a lie,” Toph’s voice finally breaks, “because, no, I can’t do anything. I can’t even fucking see, Katara! I’m always forcing myself to do things I can’t do because I don’t want to be seen as less, even though I am, and I’m _so tired_ of people telling me I can do anything if I put my mind to it—because I can’t. _I can’t.”  
  
  
  
_ Katara lets Toph writhe in her own arms, for a moment.  
  
  
  
“I just wished that someone would tell me I’m enough,” she finally whispers.  
  
  
  
  
“Will you believe them, if they told you that?”  
  
Toph forces out a laugh, “I’ll try.”  
  
“You are enough.”  
  
  
Toph stares at the ground.  
  
“You’ve always been enough, Toph,” Katara tells her, “you just never believed that yourself.”  
  
  
  
She watches her sit back down.  
  
  
“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” Toph says quietly.  
  
“It’s okay.”  
  
“It’s not.”  
  
“Okay.” Katara nods before continuing, “Well, I’m sorry I made you feel like you weren’t enough.”  
  
“It wasn’t you. It wasn’t any of you.” Toph tells her. “It was the world, really.”  
  
“Okay, then—I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you that you were enough sooner.”  
  
“You’ve always made me feel like I was enough.”  
  
Katara smiles.  
  
“Do you want a hug?”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
Toph lets Katara wrap her arms around her shoulder, lets herself lean into her shoulder. But she doesn’t let herself tell Katara about her dreams, her nightmares. About losing her bending, the only thing that made her enough. About being buried alive, the earth suffocating her, pressing her under, and she couldn’t control any of it anymore.   
  
  
Toph doesn’t let herself cry. She never does. And it made Katara’s heart ache to realize that the world has taught her how to be tough and powerful, but never soft. Toph never knew how to let herself be loved.  
  
  
(And maybe, slowly, Katara could teach her a thing or two about it.)  
  
  
But for now… having Toph in her arms was enough.

  
  
(She had always been enough.)  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr blog !!](https://hereforthehurts.tumblr.com/)


End file.
